Now, a new 50-year analysis from the University of Michigan ties these foods to binge eating<\/a> that can raise blood sugar<\/a>, blood pressure<\/a> and levels of harmful cholesterol that lead to artery blockages. <\/p>\n A whopping 70 percent of foods people ate during binge episodes were ultraprocessed, research from 1973-2023 revealed. Just 15 percent were minimally processed, such as fruits and vegetables, and it was rare that people only binged minimally processed foods.<\/p>\n The findings point to a \u201cmajor blind spot in eating disorder research,\u201d the Michigan authors suggest in a related release<\/a>. The foods in binge eating episodes have largely been ignored when studying the disorder. <\/p>\n \u201cBinge eating did not begin appearing in the scientific literature until the 1970s \u2014 around the same time highly processed foods became increasingly dominant in the food environment. Yet, eating disorder research has rarely examined how the foods themselves might contribute to binge eating,\u201d the researchers said.<\/p>\n They could also be tied to why binge eating has become the most common eating disorder in the U.S.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a 1 to 3 percent chance of developing the condition, Kristin Javaras, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, said in 2024<\/a>. Binge eating can lead to weight gain and obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease and depression, the University of Southern California\u2019s Keck Medicine notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n The most common binge eating foods across the decades are cake, ice cream, cookies, chocolate, pastries, pizza and chips, the Michigan researchers say.<\/p>\n These foods are designed with refined carbohydrates and fats that make them easy to over-consume, they note.<\/p>\n Although it remains unclear if the foods are being binged due to psychological factors, the way the foods are made or a combination of both.<\/p>\n “These findings raise an important question: if the same types of foods keep showing up in binge episodes, we have to ask whether they are simply being over-consumed \u2014 or whether they are designed in ways that promote that pattern of use,” Ashley Gearhardt, a psychology professor at the university, noted. <\/p>\n Gearhardt was part of previous research<\/a> showing that many Generation X and Baby Boomer adults show signs of addiction to ultraprocessed foods.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s older adults were in a key developmental period when our nation\u2019s food environment changed,\u201d explained graduate student Lucy Loch.<\/p>\n Nowadays, these products are high in salt, sugar and fat, make up more than half of the U.S. diet<\/a> , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>. They\u2019re also 73 percent of the country\u2019s food supply, according to Northeastern University<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[1294,102,11237,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-605769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-economy","tag-health","tag-horizontal","tag-nutrition","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Researchers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2266603724...jpeg\")
Researchers know that eating ultraprocessed foods comes with health risks. A new assessment of decades of studies reveals a link to binge eating (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/518242392...jpeg\")
Former GOP Presidential Candidate John Kasich eats a piece of pizza at Gino’s Pizzeria and Restaurant in New York City in March 2016. Pizza is one of the ultraprocessed foods most binged over the last few decades (Getty)<\/p>\n